Family – Page 4 – Joyful Domesticity

May 10, 2015May 10, 2015

Creating Memories, V

CREATING MEMORIES, V
looking forward & back

It’s Mother’s Day! And I am in the blessed scenario of both having a mother and being a mother. Do you know, when I was a young child, my grandma had the pretty unique blessing of both being a grandma and having a grandma?! Yes, we had five generations alive at one time—all the way until right before my ninth birthday, when my Great Great Grandma died, still sharp as a whip. A lot of my childhood memories hold a lot of old people—my great granddaddy James (who lived with us for a while, right before he died), my great great grandma Martha, my great grandpa Willard, my great grandma Van, and all four grandparents (two of whom lived with us for a while) for a good bit of my childhood. And oh, how I wish there were some way to harness more of those memories—there is just nothing like generational blessing, and I so desperately wish I could cling to those times with my older relatives with more detail in my memory. It is one thing that makes me long—on the other side of the coin—to give my children as many opportunities with their grandparents and great grandparents as possible. It’s one piece of why my heart breaks at the thought that my children may never see my grandfather again—and their great grandparents on their paternal side never really knew them—and even their paternal grandparents are so far away… Knitting generations together is a beautiful tapestry, and sometimes it is hard to weave (sometimes impossible, because heaven is a long way away…), but it is so worth every effort. Every memory I have of my parents, grandparents, great grandparents, and great great grandma are treasures. True treasures.

My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle…
Remember that my life is a breath…
Job 7:6-7

Peek around at our intro, part I, part II, part III, part IV, quotes and Scriptures and thoughts of grace.

And now as we finish up our conversation on creating memories, I am looking forward as well as looking backward. I am recalling some more little things from my own childhood. I am thinking of some more little things that I wonder if my children will remember when they are grown. And ultimately, I pray that my children will have the incredible blessing of knowing faithful generations on both sides of their own stories, and have treasure troves full of memories that these relationships weave through their lifetimes.

Remember how short my time is!
For what vanity You have created all the children of man!
Psalm 89:47

Looking Back

~I remember my childhood church, and filling a really long pew in the balcony every week with five generations. I remember the Sunday School building, and how Pastor Flood had a gumball machine filled with jellybeans where we could spend pennies for the goodies, and a couple of my friends didn’t like the black ones so I always got extra. I remember going to Thursday School in a far back building on the church campus, where we did neat projects and I felt like a big kid because one day I week I got to “go to school.” I remember the children’s choir—originally called the New Creature Choir, where I learned how to play recorder. I remember musicals, dying to play a lead part, and singing with all my heart. My family didn’t do Awanas, but sometimes I got to go with a friend—we didn’t regularly do VBS either, but I remember going with friends one summer and being totally overwhelmed by the puppet show. I remember weddings and funerals there. I remember the big grass field where we played games, and the area of trees that bees flocked to and stickinesss covered the ground—I’ve long wondered what kind of trees those were. I fell in love with Jesus there, I fell in love with singing there, I fell in love with piano there, I made some of the best friends a girl could ever ask for there. I have very fond memories of my childhood church.

~I remember my childhood home, where I lived & loved from 4 to 14. I don’t really remember the little house we lived in before that, except for little snippets that have been largely aided by photographs I have seen throughout my life. But I remember my bright pink bedroom in our big house on the hill. I remember loving the swimming pool in the middle of the hill and the creek at the very foot of the hill. I remember the horse corral, and wishing it were not a dilapidated fence just to play around but rather a real paddock where I could run my own real (rather than imaginary) horses. I remember the blackberry bushes and the poison oak. I remember the tall grasses. I remember my brother finding pinecones to harvest pinenuts from like an Indian. I remember learning to dive in our pool. I remember friends staying in the poolhouse, which was our guesthouse. I remember my mom sponge painting the two changing rooms on the side of the poolhouse. I remember having a hot tub that never got used, until it was removed one year so my dad & brother could build a crazy computer room in its place. I remember where the little old television was set up downstairs, and the ceiling-high set of shelves covered in VHS tapes. I remember my brother sat in the oversized chair on the left, and I would sit with my dog Goldie on the grungy couch on the right. I remember having friends over to “play prairie” with me in the backyard (especially after my dad and brother built me my prairie house with the triple bunks, the window with shutters, and the fold-down table), and then we would eat mac & cheese and drink Diet Coke for special lunch treats.

I looked on child rearing not only as a work of love & duty
but as a profession that was fully as interesting & challenging
as any honorable profession in the world
and one that demanded the best that I could bring to it.
~Rose Kennedy~

~I remember going to classes. I remember ballet—I remember loving Miss Tammy to pieces, and wanting to be a ballerina forever. Later I remember another teacher, Mrs. H, poking my tummy and telling me I was getting pudgy—and how that has plagued me for over twenty years now. I remember going to art class, and adopting my teacher, Miss Carmel, as another grandma. I remember doing a writing class. I remember a group of us homeschooled kids getting together to put on a production of Anne of Green Gables. I remember literature classes, logic classes, a class on the Civil War. I remember piano lessons—I had three teachers in California, one teacher in Washington.

~I remember falling in love with writing. I remember creating my Little Women’s Society magazine, and meeting hundreds of young ladies across the country (and a couple internationally as well) through my publication. I remember spending hours writing, compiling, typing, formatting, honing computer skills, printing & collating & stapling & addressing publications month after month (every other month for a long time, eventually quarterly, and then by the time I was in college, I had to give it up altogether). I remember sharing my life on paper with friends and strangers alike.

~I remember having fifty penpals at one time, and I regularly corresponded by hand with each one. I loved these long distance friends keenly. A few, I got to meet in person when traveling, and some I actually moved to live near. I still know many of them. And there are a couple (Joanna in the midwest and Samantha in sunny Cal!!) who I still communicate with long-distance but have never (yet) met in person.

~I remember Sunday evenings at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Five generations, usually at least a dozen people in attendance, gathered in my grandma’s house every Sunday evening. I remember Grandma and Mama cooking, Aunt Wendy washing dishes. I remember watching America’s Funniest Home Videos after it was all cleaned up. I remember helping my little cousins take baths, playing Duplos together, teaching a cousin to play Go Fish.

You were and are mother to my father—
the tree from which apples fell and grew
from which apples fell and grew
from which apples now fall and grow.
You are gone from this orchard, but [we] […] will grow on,
pointing toward the Son you showed us.
We will live—and we will die—in Christ,
thankful that He placed us downstream in the river of your human grace.
~N.D. Wilson, Death by Living, p169~

~I remember my parents dressing up to go the Civic Light Opera, dropping us off at Grandma and Grandpa’s house for dinner and sometimes a sleepover. I remember trying to spin in the leather-plastic chairs at the dining room table with my brother (they must have been from the 70s but they were spinny and fantastic fun when nobody was looking!), but getting Grandpa’s stern eyes—the same eyes we’d get if we put our elbows on the table or got too wild. I remember Grandma’s frog cookie jar. I remember spending nights at my grandparents’ house sometimes—I would sleep on the floor next to my grandma, and my brother would sleep in their walk-in closet. I remember an entire shelf of cereals in their cupboard, and how my grandparents would mix different cereals and then pile a mountain of various fruit on the very top before drizzling a little milk over it all. I remember Great Grandpa’s woodpile and workshop. I remember how he built me a Victorian dollhouse by hand after he cut off all the fingers on his right hand with an electric saw (when he was about 90). I remember Great Great Grandma’s stiff chair with the doily on the top. I remember my noisy uncles always causing one raucous or another. I remember Grandpa and his avid gardening, especially the tomatoes and the roses. I remember making chocolate chip cookies with Grandma, and playing board game after board game after board game. I remember her trying to convince me that math was fun because it was just like a game, and the right answers were always “the win.”

~I remember going square dancing with my grandparents, their weekly date night out. I remember hearing about how my parents met at ten years old at a square dance in my other grandparents’ basement across the country. (I regret that I have never learned to square dance, and I hope better for my kids somehow.)

~I remember the parties my mom threw—St. Patty’s, July 4^th, swimming parties, tea parties, Thanksgiving extravaganzas, Christmas parties of all sorts—kid parties where we made things with painted macaroni, or elegant evening parties with candlelight and classical music. I remember the food and the decorations. I remember how she worked hard but how she lived it up. She may not have had sparkly high heels on, but she wore aprons with pearls.

Oh, Marilla, I thought I was happy before.
Now I know that I just dreamed a pleasant dream of happiness.
This is the reality.
~L.M. Montgomery, Anne’s House of Dreams~

~I remember trips. I remember spending Halloween weekends at Disneyland because all the costumes were fun princesses and silly characters. I remember going away for three weeks at a time with my parents and my brother on road trips around various corners of the United States, with our maroon minivan packed full and our grey plywood car top carrier full of suitcases. I remember little tiny bits about going to Michigan when I was five, with both sets of my grandparents. I remember my granddad buying me a purple bike at a garage sale so that I could ride around Mackinac Island with everyone else. I remember my grandmother’s basement—the way it smelled, the cement floor and the fun toys, and imagining the square dances they used to host there. I remember the hot air balloon festival in New Mexico, and buying my own pair of moccasins near the Grand Canyon in Arizona. I remember staying in Las Vegas, all the bright lights and the fancy hotels, and my parents having fun with nickel slots one night. I remember traveling back east with our best friends, going through all the Colonial hot spots we had studied together in history, seeing it all face to face and reenacted. I remember driving around in a rented motorhome one time, falling in love with people and places, lying on the bed in the back with my dad while we drew pictures of future dreams while Mama drove us around and Colin manned the maps.

~I remember uprooting and starting over with my family, moving from city to country. I remember watching my dad put pieces back together. I remember him starting churches. I remember God’s hand at work in my parents. I remember testing their faith. I remember old dreams and new dreams. I remember my dog dying in my arms. I remember knowing what joy was. I remember learning what grief was.

You make the best choices you can at the time with the information you have,
and then you deal with the consequences,
and that’s the part where your life happens.
Every major decision we’ve made involved prayer and advice from wise people,
but that was no guarantee that it would turn out the way I wanted,
with a little white house and a picket fence.
~Myquillyn Smith, The Nesting Place, p39~

~I remember so many little snippets, just little sprinkles on the icing on the cake… and I don’t want to forget. But I do, and I will. So I want to enjoy the memories while I have them.

Looking Forward

~I wonder if my children will remember how hard we worked to grow our family, how we prayed and cried and kept trying again. I wonder if they will remember standing in the bathroom with me while I put shots in my tummy and they take turns counting to ten for me while I inject. I wonder if they will remember life before and without one another, if Gabriel will remember his years as an only child when he cried & begged & prayed fervently for a little brother or sister.

~I wonder if my children will remember the schooling we give them—if the books, facts, lessons, tests, fieldtrips, and experiences will sink in deeply and take root. I wonder if they will have loved their educations as much as I did mine.

~I wonder what my children will remember about their grandparents and their great grandparents. I wonder whether it is the big memories like the family vacations or the big holidays they will remember most, or the daily ins and outs of living life together that will be the monuments in their minds.

The childhood shows the man
As morning shows the day.
~John Milton, Paradise Regained~

~I wonder if they will remember me asking their forgiveness when I have lost my temper or otherwise sinned against them. I wonder if they will remember me saying yes more often than no. I wonder if they will look back on their childhoods with delight instead of regret.

~I wonder what trips will stick strongest in their memories, and which birthday celebrations or holiday traditions will maintain monuments in their minds. What will be the traditions that our kids, once grown, will want to cling to and come back home for? Will any of our kids remember their lives here in the country so fondly that they too want to build on the family land? Will I have grandchildren who know me, love me, remember me?

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not;
remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.
~Epicurus~

~I want my children too to remember little snippets that will be the sprinkles on the icing on the cake. I want them to enjoy the memories they keep, and I want us all to enjoy making the memories in the meanwhile—by God’s grace and for His Kingdom.

May 9, 2015May 9, 2015

Creating Memories, IV

As we approach the end of our conversation on creating memories for our children, (see the intro, part I, part II, and part III, as well as quotes and Scriptures on the matter) I will share some specific ways that we pursue particular routines & events to create memories for our children which we hope & pray will solidify the family culture we seek to create in our home & family.

CREATING MEMORIES, IV
how we pursue creating specific memories through
routines & events to solidify that family culture

~bedtime serenades~
Last summer during some power outages (two weeks’ worth, ten days apart from one another), I picked up piano playing again. My pretty little baby grand had been gathering country dust (which honestly is unavoidable where we live) but had also been largely unplayed and unloved in recent years. During those weeks with no cd player, no internet, no videos, no electronic anything… I returned to making music. I pulled out Beethoven, Debussy, Bach, Mozart, Rachmaninoff… along with some collections of other random composers both historical & contemporary… and I simply began to play. But it is hard to play during the day when other things call me… like children… or chores of all various & sundry types. Especially once the electricity returned, and I could cook and clean and launder and internet (can I please use that as a verb? thankyouverymuch) normally again, I found that finding uninterrupted time for music making is really quite difficult.
But the children begged me to play for them, and my husband is more than delighted when I play as well. I do desperately want my children to remember their mother as partly musician, and definitely as a true lover of music.
So it happened: bedtime serenades were born.
Now, after tucking them in, kissing them, praying for them, and blessing them, I scoot myself over to the piano. I play for roughly thirty minutes, and the children love falling asleep in the midst of it. I guess it’s been a habit for over nine months now, and it is definitely rooted in the evening routine at this point.
Recently, they have begun requesting harp in addition to piano. Sometimes I play one instrument per night, other times I play a little of each. There have also been occasions recently where I simply am too exhausted to play at all, and I beg their forgiveness even as their little pouty lips show me their true disappointment.
So I do my best to keep up with the tradition, and all three of my kids nightly remind me of my musical commitment to serenade them in their beds. It’s funny how such a joy for all five of us has become a habit, part of our evening routine, and now something I hope we will all remember in years to come as something which filled our home with joy, beauty, and melody while the crickets sang and the stars twinkled outside and little ones’ bodies fell into slumber in the comfort of their own little beds.

We don’t risk because it’s easy;
we risk because of hope,
because we see the promise of something better.
~Myquillyn Smith, The Nesting Place, p85~

~joy at the table~
We need to keep working on this one, I’ll just say honestly from the get-go. 🙂 I long for my children to look back at mealtimes not just as opportunities to fill our mouths and bellies with food, but to love one another and spend time with one another… especially the dinner table where all of us sit down together. Breakfast and lunch, at this point in our family’s life, are meals the three kids share together, but Steven is at work and I am bustling around doing multiple other things. So evening dinnertime is our daily hallmark to sit together, speak together, laugh together, and spend time in one place together. The dinner table is not a time and place to focus on ourselves or to suddenly become introverted and quiet while we stuff forkfuls of chicken and rice in our mouths. This is a time to feast together not only on food, but on one another. As the kids grow, I know our conversations will also grow… at this point, it can obviously still be pretty tricky to carry on much of a real conversation. But conversation, even if in fits and spurts, is better than all quietly munching on our food side by side. I try to pass questions off to each of the kids (preferably not when they have just filled their mouths with a big bite… but my timing is not always stellar…), and encourage them to tell their daddy about their day. We also try to teach the kids to ask questions of others, too, and encourage conversations that way. Sometimes jokes and giggles and silly sounds make their way into the dinner routine, and I can’t help but throw my hands up in laughter and let it go. Manners are definitely a work in progress, but joy is a more important work at this point, and we are eager to continue growing in this daily time together at the table, and hope that as our children look back on their life in our home, that it will be a blessing they count in their memories, and a place they long to return to for more feasting on all the best kinds of fat things together.

Get advice from people who are doing the thing
the way you want to be doing that thing.
It’s a universal law that can be applied to almost any situation.
~Myquillyn Smith, The Nesting Place, p92~

~Sabbath as a joy & monument, Christ everyday & in our everyday~
Have you ever read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Farmer Boy” and been taken aback at the description of Sundays? As I recall, it’s the same in “Little House in the Big Woods,” and I don’t think the legalism and harsh realities of what “Sabbath” meant to people is really very far-fetched for most of us. But my boys, who are old enough to pick up on the nuances of these details we read about, find it absolutely unimaginable. They love Sundays! They happen to love dressing up, so wearing their Sunday best is anything but a chore (and I think that took some training, both habitually and watching their father learn to enjoy dressing up as well ~ because of course the boys really just want to be like their daddy!). They get leftover pancakes or waffles (because Steven has a tradition of making breakfast on Saturdays, and he always makes leftovers so the kids can have sweet goodness on Sunday morning that won’t take me a lot of time or work to prepare), and I often give the kids each a special treat like a piece of candy and say, “whose day is this?” The Lord’s Day! “and what do we do?” Be Glad In It! “and remember that it is sweet!” Then we head off for an hour of Sunday school before going to worship together. Our children learn from infancy about liturgy and participating in worship: they recite creeds and other liturgical phrases, they sing (at the top of their lungs when they know the words!), they kneel & pray, they pass the peace of Christ with the brethren around them, they partake of communion (and teach us adults so much through their attitudes of peace and abandoned delight as they kneel at the altar). We fellowship with other believers: whether in the church building or in homes, we love another with hugs and handshakes, over plates of food and cups of coffee, we seek the good of others, we ask questions and answer questions, we converse and seek to delve ever further into sharing life with these people who are our brethren. We encourage our kids even as little people that spurring one another on to love and good deeds is what church life really boils down to, and glorifying God through our fellowship, worship, learning, growing, sharpening, and sharing the Good News. We encourage multi-generational worship & fellowship, delighting in filling a pew with three generations as well as often going out to eat with my parents after church (which is monumentally exciting for the kids week after week!) if we don’t have people over or have not been invited elsewhere. We love to pray in public, and the kids frequently ask to do it. They never mince words or turn down the volume, and it’s winsome. If we aren’t spending the afternoon with other folks, we generally head home to read and play and rest and sometimes nap. We love reading by the fire in wintertime, sprawling on the grass in the summertime.
Then there is our Sunday evening family fun night, detailed under the next heading.
And after the kids go to bed on Sunday nights, it’s time for my husband and me to have our own little restful date night, usually with wine, cheese, olives, & chocolate.
We seek to grow continually in our Lord’s Day practices, and to engage the children in the process, so that our Sabbaths are simply joy-filled days of resting in the Lord & delighting in His world. We long for a truly robust habit of Sundays, which joy oozes out into the other six days we spend cultivating the world God made and loving the people He created for it.

So we don’t draw the line there, leaving our pursuit of Christ and His holiness on Sundays, of course. We pursue God’s Kingdom every day of the week, and seek by our words and our actions to lead our children in this way. We pray out loud numerous times throughout the day (we take turns doing it—the children love to lead in prayer, to speak to their Father in specifics), we read Scripture (I have Scriptures around the house in various art forms or presentations, and I try to read with the kids going straight through books of the Bible in conjunction with learning catechism together—we’re finishing Genesis right now before jumping to one of Paul’s epistles again), we praise God for both big and little things (like finding a baby’s heartbeat on the doppler! or finding a parking spot right next to the shopping cart return…), we talk of the fruits of the Spirit and sing of God’s grace and faithfulness. We discipline and disciple as diligently as we can, and grace with forgiveness are emphasized again and again throughout the days. We use catechisms and Scriptures the kids know to “hold them by their baptism” as one of our pastors would say. There is never a moment where they are not bound up in Christ, filled with His Spirit, and heard by the Father—so there is never a moment where we should not seek to act like His children, in thought, word, and deed. That is our endeavor, our pursuit, our hope, our prayer, our privilege, our delight.

~weekly family fun night~
As I said above, part of our merrymaking on the Lord’s Day is how we wrap up the day with family fun night: the intent being to do something fun and to eat something fun. At this season of our little family’s life, that means watching movies in Mommy & Daddy’s room while eating popcorn and ice cream. Someday, we look forward to developing it further with board games and blended drinks, for instance! We hope this weekly tradition (which the children adore) will grow and deepen as our kids do, and that its fun will continue to reflect our family relationships and the joys we find in one another.

Living is the same thing as dying.
Living well is the same thing as dying for others.
~N.D. Wilson, Death by Living, p84~

~love of learning, delight in playing, embracing of all we call neighbor~
Especially as a homeschooling family, but regardless of it just the same, we seek to daily inculcate a love of curiosity and creativity and learning. We emphasize that education is all around us, and that we should enjoy reading, uncovering, discovering, and continually attaining knew heights in our education all the time, every day ~ all of us, not just those who qualify as K-12. We love books, and try to give countless opportunities for reading fiction and non-fiction and Scripture and schoolbooks throughout the days. Trips to the library require muscles these days, as we bring home dozens of books filling a large basket, and we often renew them as many times as we can in order to best glean from them and love them. Our oldest son now often begs to go to bed right after dinner, just so he can read by flashlight for hours in the evening!
We encourage a delight in playing, especially playing together. Our kids do love toys (don’t all kids?), but they love their imaginations more. When the playing is no longer fun, the salt has lost its savor… so we encourage them to move on to new fun and different playing. They learn, they grow, they rejoice, they love life when they play together delightedly, so we try to have plenty of time each day where they can nurture their imaginations and play together with joy.
We also seek to embrace our neighbor in these things, especially as learning and playing coincide. When bringing cookies or Christmas poinsettias or loaves of fresh bread to literal neighbors, we remind our kids that we love in action in addition to our words. When we meet new families on fieldtrips or at the library, we remind our kids that these people too are our neighbors. In our church home, we teach our kids to embrace all of these people with all of these stories in all of these generations because they too are our neighbors. We try to help our kids come up with creative (or not) ways to embrace people: with handwritten or hand colored notes, with gifts of homemade foods, with various forms of opening our home & sharing hospitality, with smiles or handshakes, with grace and forgiveness.

If you were suddenly given more than you could count,
and you couldn’t keep any of it for yourself,
what would you do?
That is, after all, our current situation.
Grabbing will always fail.
Giving will always succeed.
Bestow.
Our children, our friends, and our neighbors will all be better off
if we work to accumulate for their sakes.
If God has given you a widow’s mite, let it go.
Set it on the altar.
If God has given you a great banquet than you can possibly eat, let it go.
Set it on the altar.
~N.D. Wilson, Death by Living, p110~

May 7, 2015May 7, 2015

Creating Memories, III

Another installment in the conversation on creating memories for our children, see the intro, part I, and part II, as well as memory quotes & a sidebar on grace. And now I will tell you briefly a little of some hows & whys behind a few of the overarching qualities that we seek to pursue in our family culture. A lot of them are interwoven, with joy and grace being the essential threads tying them all into one tapestry ~ the tapestry that we call our home & family life.
Don’t forget to share your own thoughts on the subject in the comments, so we can make it a real conversation!

CREATING MEMORIES, III
how we pursue creating a general family culture
of music, fun, joy, laughter, delight, grace & forgiveness

~music~
As a musical person myself, I have sought to teach my kids about music and singing from the womb. I have grand visions of incorporating music and singing into every meal, like a regular liturgy. 🙂 Not sure that is actually realistic, which is probably why I have only managed to accomplish such things in short spurting seasons thus far. I have dreams of our children all learning various instruments, and someday having a little family folk band together. They will all learn piano first (well, they learn singing first! then piano is their first non-organic instrument…), and then have access to our other stash of instruments (harps, Irish hand drum, guitar, handbells), and then eventually would be able to choose instruments of their own (once they are old enough to be diligent, and have a good foundation with piano and singing, we will love to hire teachers and rent instruments of each child’s choosing). Beginning this year, we get the pleasure of introducing our children to a week-long summer day camp of music camp, and we could not be more delighted at being able to give our kids this opportunity! (Only one is old enough so far to actually attend, but they’ll each get there with time…)
We always have music playing on the cd player throughout the day, and what we call our bedtime serenades is something I will share with you soon. We sing when we tuck the kids in, too, and I try to work with the kids on other songs during the days (when I remember to do it).
It would be an enormous blessing (and honestly a huge success in my eyes) if my children were to look back on their childhoods as being regularly seasoned with music.

The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located
will betray us if we trust to them;
it was not in them, it only came through them,
and what came through them was longing.
These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—
are good images of what we really desire;
but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols,
breaking the hearts of their worshipers.
For they are not the thing itself;
they are only the scent of a flower we have not found,
the echo of a tune we have not heard,
news from a country we have never yet visited.
~C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory~

~words~
Our children love singing, reading, writing, & of course (oh do they ever!) talking. I hope our children remember words in their childhoods being seasoned with grace. I long for them to remember our conversations being filled with kindness and humility (and yes, I hope they will forget the times when my words are flavored with harshness, cynicism, and selfishness). I want them to remember singing amazing songs and reading fantastic books and writing to wonderful people. One of my great desires for my little bibliophiles is that words would continue to grow them, shape them, mold them, give them delight, increase their wisdom, and create memories of stories—both their own and otherworldly. I want them to love words, understand words, and use words for building kingdoms and building up of souls.

I want my kids to learn firsthand and up close that different isn’t bad,
but instead that different is exciting and wonderful
and worth taking the time to understand.
I want them to see themselves as bit players,
in a huge, sweeping, beautiful play,
not as the main characters in the drama of our living room.
~Shauna Niequist, Bread & Wine, p98~

~laughter~
I want my children to remember their childhoods as filled with laughter. The carillon that comes from an absolute overflow of utter delight!
Our rooms are literally ringing with it throughout the day, and as the kids get older, I don’t want that evidence of joy to diminish but to grow and deepen. I would love for laughter to be a hallmark of our family’s love for one another and delight in being together. It doesn’t take much to get these little people rolling with chuckles on the floor, but I confess that I have a long way to go in growing in my own laughter. I am far too serious, and I hope that the Lord will have mercy upon me in giving me more laughter as time goes on—so that my children will see my wrinkles someday as laughter lines rather than stern lines. This is my hope, and I need to make it my prayer.

Parenting in grace is not parenting on the basis
of your own consistent gospel-centeredness.
It is just the opposite.
Parenting in grace is parenting on the basis
of Christ’s consistent perfections alone.
~Elyse Fitzpatrick & Jessica Thompson, Give Them Grace, p163~

~forgiveness~
I suppose above all else, even above an atmosphere of utter joy itself, is that I want my children to remember their home as a place where forgiveness was both sought and given wholeheartedly. There is nothing that is too big for God’s grace and forgiveness, because as His children Jesus paid the ransom for it all. I want that to ultimately permeate and override everything else in our home, family, routine, desires. Only by God’s grace can that happen, so that is what I pray for, yearn for, endeavor to inculcate in our home & in our people. From the fount of forgiveness all other graces can then pour, for without the peace that flows from forgiveness, joy and laughter and music and grace-filled words would just be empty shells.

Only humility, only transparent confession of our great need,
will result in the grace we so desperately need
to parent the little fellow sinners in our home.
~Elyse Fitzpatrick & Jessica Thompson, Give Them Grace, p165~

May 6, 2015May 6, 2015

Creating Memories, Sidebar on Grace

As we take today to just meditate on grace, and especially as it relates to parenting (but obviously God’s grace is for everyone!! and the following quotes could be applied easily to others as well…), please remember that we would love to have you chime in by commenting and sharing your own thoughts on the subject of creating memories. Check out the intro here, part I here , fun quotes here and part II here…

Seeking to be faithfully obedient parents is our responsibility;
granting faith to our children is His.
~Elyse Fitzpatrick & Jessica Thompson, Give Them Grace, p53~

Works righteousness is a deadly and false variation of godly obedience.
Godly obedience is motivated by love for God
and trust in His gracious plan and power.
Works righteousness is motivated by unbelief;
it is a reliance on our abilities and a desire to control outcomes.
Works righteousness eventuates in penance:
I’ll make it up to you by redoubling my efforts tomorrow!
rather than repentance:
Lord forgive me for my sin today. Thank You that You love me in spite of all my failures.
~Elyse Fitzpatrick & Jessica Thompson, Give Them Grace, p55~

In parenting, works righteousness will cause us
to be both fearful and demanding.
When we see our failures, we will be overcome with fear…
When we see their failures, we’ll be overly demanding…
Works righteousness obliterates the sweet comforts of grace
because it cuts us off from God,
who alone is the giver of grace.
~Elyse Fitzpatrick & Jessica Thompson, Give Them Grace, p55~

When we’re quietly resting in grace,
we’ll have grace to give our children, too.
When we’re freed from the ultimate responsibility of being their savior,
we’ll find our parenting burden becoming easy and light.
~Elyse Fitzpatrick & Jessica Thompson, Give Them Grace, p55~

[C]hristian parenting books are not Christian if their primary message is law.
If their message isn’t rooted and grounded in the truth
that you and your children are deeply sinful yet deeply loved,
in reality it’s nothing more than a glorification of the will and work of the parent.
Aside from placing a crushing burden of guilt and fear upon the backs of dads and moms,
the thought that we can change anyone’s heart is laughable.
Change our children’s hearts?
Only God has power to change the heart!
~Elyse Fitzpatrick & Jessica Thompson, Give Them Grace, p161~

How desperately we all need to remember that there are
only two verses in the New Testament about Christian parenting.
Only two!
When we make parenting more complex than God has made it,
we afflict ourselves with burdens too heavy for us to carry,
and we are unintentionally presuming that the good news of the gospel is insufficient.
~Elyse Fitzpatrick & Jessica Thompson, Give Them Grace, p161~

When we forget the gospel and then feel guilty about it,
we are completely missing the point of the gospel.
Our ultimate joy as parents is not dependent on our ability to parent well.
God’s smile on us is not contingent upon anything
other than the record of the beloved Son.
It is based on our belief that Jesus has already done it all perfectly for us.
Grace simply means resting in Jesus’s blood and righteousness.
~Elyse Fitzpatrick & Jessica Thompson, Give Them Grace, p162~

Grace isn’t created by our ability to work at it or even remember it—
that’s why it’s called “grace.”
~Elyse Fitzpatrick & Jessica Thompson, Give Them Grace, p162~

Grace is not a thing.
It is not a substance that can be measured or a commodity to be distributed.
It is the “grace of the Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 13:14).
In essence, it is Jesus Himself.
~Elyse Fitzpatrick & Jessica Thompson, Give Them Grace, p162~

May 5, 2015May 6, 2015

Creating Memories, II

Continuing in our conversation on creating memories… intro here, my own childhood memories here , fun quotes here… Now I will share with you some specific things (both activities/events and overall penetrating themes) which I hope, pray, endeavor, and work toward my own children embracing now and remembering as time goes on, and in a couple of days I will expand each of these areas to share about the hows (and maybe the whys) behind them. Remember to share in the comments (or link to your blog) if there are specifics that you want your own kids to remember as they someday look back upon their childhoods as well ~ I would love to exchange ideas with you!

CREATING MEMORIES, II
specifics I want my kids to remember

~bedtime serenades~
In the evenings, after tucking them in, kissing them, praying for them, and blessing them, I scoot myself over to the piano. I play for roughly thirty minutes, and the children love falling asleep in the midst of it.
Recently, they have begun requesting harp in addition to piano. Sometimes I play one instrument per night, other times I play a little of each.

~joy at the table~
We need to keep working on this one. 🙂 I long for my children to look back at mealtimes not just as opportunities to fill our mouths and bellies with food, but to love one another and spend time with one another… especially the dinner table where all of us sit down together.

~love of learning, delight in playing, embracing of all we call neighbor~
Especially as a homeschooling family, but regardless of it just the same, we seek to daily inculcate a love of curiosity and creativity and learning.
We encourage a delight in playing, especially playing together.
We also seek to embrace our neighbor in these things, especially as learning and playing coincide.

~weekly family fun night~
Part of our merrymaking on the Lord’s Day is how we wrap up the day with family fun night!

~music~
As a musical person myself, I have sought to teach my kids about music and singing from the womb. I have grand visions of incorporating music and singing into every meal, like a regular liturgy. 🙂
It would be an enormous blessing (and honestly a huge success in my eyes) if my children were to look back on their childhoods as being regularly seasoned with music.

~words~
Our children love singing, reading, writing, (oh do they ever!) talking. I hope our children remember words in their childhoods being seasoned with grace.

~laughter~
I want my children to remember their childhoods as filled with laughter.

~forgiveness~
I suppose above all else, even above joy itself, is that I want my children to remember their home as a place where forgiveness was both sought and given wholeheartedly.

May 3, 2015May 4, 2015

Creating Memories, I

A couple of days ago, I introduced a conversation to you. A conversation about memories ~ those from our own childhoods, and those that we desperately wish to inculcate into the lives of the children around us, in our homes, in our charge. As we jump into a few days’ meditation on this subject, please allow me to first share with you some of the hallmark memories from my own childhood, and the overarching theme which I remember permeating our family home & life. You are invited, and most welcome, to share your own experiences in the comments here or link over to your own blog if you have one. The intent is not to compare or even to contrast childhood memories, but to encourage one another as we see different beauties and varied glories in different homes among different families, to see with eyes of grace how the Lord has written different stories for each of us, to be lifted in spirit as we remember where we came from and look ahead in faith & hope to where He continues taking us.

CREATING MEMORIES, I
what I remember from my own childhood

~bedtime—singing, Daddy on guitar, Mama’s fingers running through my hair~
I remember bedtime like no other time of the day. Some of my very earliest memories (coming from someone who has a notoriously bad memory…) are of bedtime. Perhaps because it was the one predictable time of the day when all four of us were together, doing the same thing at the same time. I don’t remember how we got from the dinner table to our beds; I don’t recall if we had dinner, evening, or playtime routines; I don’t even honestly remember if my super-busy pediatrician father who was incessantly in high demand was with us every night for dinner or not (although I know for certain he was there often, and I imagine he did absolutely everything he could to be there every night).
But I remember being tucked in. I remember my dog either curling up on her pillow at the foot of my bed or scurrying underneath my bed to sleep. I remember my parents taking turns saying goodnight to my brother and me, singing to each of us separately, sometimes my dad settling himself with his guitar in between our bedroom doors to sing to us both at the same time. I remember my favorite “song” to request was “make-up, Daddy! make-up!” and he would make something up on the fly. I loved that! I remember my mother kneeling at the side of my bed, combing my hair with her fingers, sometimes just while she said goodnight and sang me a lullaby (which words she crafted when I was a wee thing), sometimes continuing until I had fully fallen asleep. I remember falling asleep with the most peaceful feeling that this was home, this was peace, this was comfort, this was love.

I remember how well they loved us without actually using words.
Because sometimes words are too difficult to hear.
Sometimes you’re just not ready to dissect what you’ve been through.
Sometimes you need both more and less than the words.
~Lisa-Jo Baker, Surprised By Motherhood, p98~

~freedom in playing & schedules & schooling—the comfort of balancing freedom with boundaries~
I remember feeling so free in my childhood. We were not married to schedules although we definitely kept to routines (don’t you kind of have to, in order to all function together smoothly, and to interact with the community around you?). I remember routines like “Thursday School” and going with my mom to her ladies’ Bible studies. I remember going to “the club” with my mom, coloring in Disney books (Ariel might have been my favorite… and one of my friends may have taught me to draw mermaids freehand, although I always ended up with the shells near the belly button somehow…), while my mom did aerobics. I loved watching her, tapping my toes to the rhythmic music. Sometimes we got to go swimming, play tennis, or play on the playground at the club. I remember the routine of Friday mornings, where my dad would take my brother and me on rounds with him at the hospitals. I remember hanging out in nursing stations while he donned yellow gowns and examined sweet tiny babies in nurseries. I remember the smell of the hospitals. I remember he would take us out for breakfast too: Jack In The Box was our agreed upon favorite at the time. Colin ordered things without eggs, I ordered things without sausage. We loved the delightful spoiling of getting to have a treat like Sprite or orange juice on a weekday morning. I remember getting to bring my schoolwork to my dad’s office, to sit at the little fold-up desk he had built right there into his own workplace. Sometimes I got to interact with patients, or hang out with his staff (including my grandma, who was the financial guru), but mostly I think I did try to focus on math and reading and writing. I remember doing schoolwork at home, and watching Little House on the Prairie on channel 36 when I was done with my lessons… although I tended to do more lessons in one day than I was technically supposed to. I remember my parents encouraging fieldtrips and experiences and reading for hours on end. I remember hanging out at the Saratoga library. I remember learning and growing and my curiosity expanding. I remember having time to create things, to play music or read books for hours on end, to run free and wild in our acre-wide backyard, to gather wild blackberries or catch tadpoles in the creek or hike through backyards to say hello to a horse a few homes down (I called her Sweet Pea, but I never actually found out her real name). I remember my friends all being tied to schedules and having very little downtime. I remember wishing my friends wouldn’t be grounded so often, because it always seemed to hurt my heart more than it hurt theirs when our precious playdates got canceled (perhaps that’s because my friends all had sisters, and I was the only one who didn’t). I remember feeling so beautifully free, but I remember the comfort of knowing my boundaries and of resting in the knowledge that breaking boundaries would result in the bittersweet blessing of discipline. I remember feeling loved and safe in the freedom of those boundaries.

~being my mama’s shadow and being allowed in my daddy’s world~
I remember following my mother everywhere. From the moment I was born, I think I somehow knew she was going to be my lifelong best friend and forever mentor. Church events, errands, hospitality, visiting those in need, catering monthly office lunches at my dad’s office, Sunday night family dinners at my grandma’s house, hosting tea parties, doing housework, cooking meals, folding laundry, adding chemicals to the swimming pool, sewing clothes and curtains and gifts, reorganizing cupboards and redecorating rooms. I loved shadowing my mother, learning from her, watching her, coming alongside her to groom my clumsy hands slowly into shadows of her skilled ones. I hardly ever remember being without her. When I did find myself without her (at piano lessons, ballet, or even if I waited in the car while she ran in to the bank or Safeway), I do recall a feeling of painful separation. I didn’t like being without the one whom I shadowed. I embraced it and loved it and was blessed by it. Thankfully, I think she did & was too!
I remember being allowed in my daddy’s world. From the weekly trips to breakfast and on hospital rounds, to the times (was it weekly also?) when I would spend mornings doing schoolwork in his office, to playing tennis, to learning different swimming strokes, to watching him woodwork in his shop, to singing alongside him while he strummed his guitar, to recording music together on cassette tapes, to driving around buckled into the back left seat of our minivan and shopping at Home Depot for wood or Fry’s Electronics for techy stuff I really didn’t understand ~ I loved being allowed in his world. I followed him like a little duckling, not always shaping my hands to imitate his, but always watching and gleaning and loving and respecting what his hands were doing… and his hands were always doing.

Here’s just one oddity about being people:
I don’t remember anything about showing up on this planet (and neither do you).
I am here. You are here.
Others have to explain it to me.
I take it on faith.
Everything that I believe about my own origin and the early years of being me,
I have heard secondhand.
I was clearly a free agent (based on the stories).
I was assessing things and making decisions and taking action (with an emphasis on self-interest).
I was living life to the fullest.
And all of it is gone, at least from my memory.
But humans are not intended for data storage (though we have that capacity).
We are intended for living, for moving through a story.
~N.D. Wilson, Death by Living, p96~

~my brother as my constant and best friend~
I remember how people would comment about our brother-sister relationship, how we never argued (let alone fought), how we were sometimes mistaken for twins (red head blue eyed freckled waifs!), how we had vastly different hobbies & interests but always found middle ground to love spending time together. I remember always looking up to him, and wanting to be like him in any ways that I could. I remember how he shadowed our father like I shadowed our mother. I remember knowing early on that he was basically a genius, and I tried hard to keep pace with him until we were teenagers when I realized calculus and computer languages just were not going to be my thing at all. I remember playing with him in the creek, watching him practice archery on the woodshed, how he helped my dad build me “a prairie house” playhouse, how I learned to type by watching him type, how he helped teach me to drive, how we did music together, how we did Scottish Highland dancing together, how we shared friends, how we shared love of being country kids (he with his cows, me with my horse) and he built me a chicken coop for my fifteenth birthday present because I was given nine little chicks that year. I remember being told that it would change when we grew up, that boys grow into men who necessarily have to love wives so intensely that sisters will have to grow into the background. I remember not believing what I was told. But even though our friendship is not the same depth because we do not have the unique time alone together for days on end anymore, our friendship is still present and unique. He is always there for me. He always answers the phone when I call him, whether with good news or bad. We pray for one another. We embrace one another’s kids with abandon. I see us in our children… and I see the beauty of my lifelong friendship with my beloved big brother reflected in the loving friendship our children now share. He is the only other person who shared my childhood, who has common memories with me, who gets the inside jokes or secret looks across the dining table at my parents’ house. Age and distance will never change that. And the things I remember from childhood, growing up with him as my only sibling and only real bosom friend, haven’t begun to fade yet, and I seriously pray they never will.

Because [he] is my only sibling, and I am his,
there’s something completely singular about our relationship.
There’s no one on earth who has shared our history,
no one on earth who can see the world from the corner that we alone inhabit.
… Now we are grown. And he is still one of my best friends…
There is a whole world, a whole history between us that no one else knows,
that no one else understands, and there are times when my brother and I catch eyes
in a room, across the dinner table, or across the yacht club,
understanding each other perfectly, wordlessly.
What a gift it is to share this town, this history, this family,
this corner of the world with someone like him.
~Shauna Niequist, Bread & Wine, p238~

~truth, beauty, and goodness as overarching themes that penetrated our everyday~
I remember the gospel glories of truth, beauty, and goodness penetrating every aspect of our family life. Home, church, homeschooling, hospitality, Daddy’s work, Mama’s work, our relationships. There was never any doubt Who ruled our home and family. There was never any doubt that the only things truly worth pursuing (individually and corporately) were those which held truth, beauty, and goodness ~ or at least the seeds or seedlings of them. Woodworking, home decorating, feeding bellies, lavish tables, huge Christmas trees, clothing, speaking, writing, singing, fellowshipping, exercising, serving at the City Team homeless shelter, leading Bible studies and craft nights, science projects with the J girls, hiking through the hills, finishing math pages, playing dressup… there was no aspect of my childhood where truth, beauty, and goodness did not permeate and saturate. Even (perhaps especially) when I sinned, and was disciplined, those three glorious themes were huge and everpresent. The forgiveness of my father was something I craved and loved and clung to… and it taught me about the forgiveness of my Heavenly Father as well.
While my parents may not have verbally used the tri fecta of truth, beauty, and goodness in so many words all the time, as I reflect upon my childhood, that is what I remember. It is what I knew, and what I know, and what I pray to continue knowing.

May 1, 2015April 30, 2015

Happy Birthday, (Grand)Mama!

As I begin to delve into a little blog series on childhood memories, I wanted to take this little opportunity to say happy birthday to my mother.

The woman who has embraced me, pursued me, let me go, and prayed for me ~ every day of my life.

I know she’s praying…
The faithful prayers of a woman
who isn’t just being polite when she says, “I’ll pray for you.”
I’ve come to recognize that for her,
that phrase isn’t the worn-out cliché I’m used to,
but the battle cry of a warrior.
I don’t take it for granted anymore.
~Lisa-Jo Baker, Surprised By Motherhood, p126~

One of the greatest gifts my mother has given me is her love of prayer.
She pursues it daily, in big and little ways.
You might not know she is seasoned in combat just by looking at her, but I know that she is a warrior ~ the Throne of Grace has been battered by her cries repeatedly, daily, continually… not the least cries of which, have been on my own behalf.

I have always wanted to be like my mom when I grew up. At the same time, like most adults, I am more like her in some ways than I thought I would be… and maybe even like her in some ways I wish I weren’t. But I was made partly in her image. I am half her. And I’ve learned to love and embrace that, with its vibrancy & its shadows.
I want to cook like she does. Paint like she can. Play with my grandkids like she does. I want a vibrant and militant prayer life like hers. I want to be passionate and unafraid like she is. I want to honor my husband and adore my offspring in the private & public ways like she does.

Happy Birthday, Mama… you are grand. xo

April 26, 2015April 25, 2015

I will live myself to death for them

As Nate Wilson said, I am thankful
“for the people I am meant to live myself to death for.
For bigness. For smallness.
For bread. For wine.
For all they represent”
(Death by Living, p188).
May I live accurately,
according to this thankfulness in my heart.

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May I live myself to death for the people God has given me.

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April 24, 2015April 24, 2015

My Sweet Teen

Introducing my newest little covenantal creation, by the grace of the Holy Spirit & creative Word…

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This is our thirteenth child, the little guy I lovingly call Sweet Teen.
The beloved baby I hold now in the depths of my own body…
whose heart beats beneath my own…
whose precious limbs flail without me even feeling them yet…
this is the person I ache to look upon with my own eyes this autumn…
and until then, we pray and we hope and we rejoice…
I take medications and shots and adhere to dietary restrictions…
I rest and I puke and I ache…
and I give unabashed thanks every single day to the Author of life…
and it brings me such joy to share this glimpse with you
into the secret places where the Lord is secretly & miraculously weaving microscopic threads
into a little itty bitty person in His image
and in ours.

And I weep for joy
because the Lord has heard our cries
for life.

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Sex as an act of creation, of art, of life,
filled our thoughts and bed and intertwined the parts of us
we didn’t realize we’d still been living separate.
This righteous act of love that reminds human creatures
that there is a miracle wrapped in the gift of pleasure.
A miracle that points to a good Gift Giver outside ourselves,
outside our control, outside our timelines,
outside our attempts at manipulation or desperate demands.
Galaxies must align and collide in the secret dark,
and all we can do is humble ourselves
to be available to something much bigger than our comprehension.
~Lisa-Jo Baker, Surprised By Motherhood, p184~

~*~*~

God knits babies together in the secret dark.
And we can plan all we like,
but we have no actual control over the outcomes.
We bear witness to the miracle, and we women—
we also bear it in our bodies.
But we certainly don’t dictate it.
~Lisa-Jo Baker, Surprised By Motherhood, p166~

~*~*~

God already knows
He already delights.
He has already been singing over them in the dark,
secret hours of spinning life out of strands of DNA—
an artist at work, creating and shaping another Adam-child in His image.
And the sonogram is desperate to catch up.
The black-and-white shifting dimensions on the screen only hint at His handiwork.
At the brilliance and the raw beauty beating
with the brand-new chambers of a heart there on the dim screen.
It is the shape the Father sculpted in the beginning
and the shape the Christ-Son took.
It is the ancient, familiar form
that is still somehow new every time we see it fitted over a new soul.
Upward and forward and deeper into the heart of God
with each new life He entrusts us with.
Parts of us crack wide open,
and we are vulnerable to a vast army of fears,
for to parent is to ache over the unknown.
~Lisa-Jo Baker, Surprised By Motherhood, p166~

April 6, 2015April 5, 2015

Easter Lessons

This year, we went out of our way to do a few more hands-on lessons and Easter preparations with the children. The older they get, of course the more they grasp ~ and it is delightful to hear their own 6, 3, and 2 year old sized insights into why we do the things we do.

On Good Friday, rather than doing our normal homeschooling routine, while the little ones had individual room time (learning to play on their own for a solid hour is a good skill to learn), Gabriel helped me clean the house. We washed windows, cleaned bathrooms, swept floors, mopped floors, did laundry, washed dishes, wiped down cupboards. And while we worked together, we talked about why we were working so hard, and why is this what we chose to do on Good Friday. When I asked Gabriel what he thought, he paused in thought, then profoundly said, “Well, today is the day we remember the whole reason why Jesus came. He came to clean our hearts. So I guess that’s why we should clean our home.” I wanted to just stop the conversation right there, and leave it at that ~ because my kid gets SO much of the Gospel story, and I love hearing his perspective on it. It’s beautiful. But we went on to talk about how Jesus served others, even though He was King of all. We talked about “our people” ~ and who are our neighbors. Gabriel even asked if he could wash my feet when we were done cleaning, because he wanted to bless me and serve me like Jesus.

But I hate to admit, I forgot about the feet-washing, because by the time we were done cleaning the house, the little ones were ready to be done with solitary playtime, and we needed to move on to the phase of dirtying things back up again. Funny how we do that in my line of work: we clean things up so we can make them dirty again!

So after a little lunch, Evangeline was ready for a nap, and the boys & I got out supplies for some crafts that would hold more lessons.

We had already dyed Easter eggs with Grandmama, Auntie, and cousins, complete with super sweet and thoughtful conversations about the metaphors, symbolism, and just plain fun of the tradition. My children and I have talked numerous times this week about the symbolism we can see in the eggs… how they symbolize the rock which closed the tomb, but new life can spring forth from it… how we can take plain eggs and give them new clothing, as we do when we take on new life in Christ… how the yolk in a cracked egg can symbolize the glorious light of Jesus’ resurrection from the dark tomb when He burst forth in glorious array…
Click here to read about Easter Egg traditions throughout the life of the Church, following the Lenten season. Even plain old Wikipedia had some great thought-provoking things about Easter Eggs, or Paschal Eggs. And for some fun nuances on Easter Egg traditions, click here and have some fun with the kids in your life.

Romans 6:4
We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death,
in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead
by the glory of the Father,
we too might walk in newness of life.

Thanks to Ann Voskamp’s diligent sharing each and every year, I finally felt like my boys were old enough this year to really grasp & enjoy a couple more unique & detailed hands-on projects.

First we had a snack of nuts and figs, while we made a crown of thorns (using a small grapevine wreath and a few dozen coffee-stained toothpicks) and talked a lot about the events of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Three year old Asher was nearly in tears (I love how his forehead crinkles and his chin quivers when he feels genuine sorrow), talking about Jesus being tortured, bleeding, and dying. He finally smiled again when I reminded Him that this was why Jesus came, and this is how He worked to save US from OUR sins. And in his sweet little voice, Asher proclaimed, “I sure love Jesus, Mommy.”

Matthew 27:29
…twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on His head…

Mark 15:17
…twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on Him.

John 19:2, 5
And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on His head and arrayed Him in a purple robe. So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe.

Next we went out on to the back porch and put together our own little Gethsemane. Using a small moss planter (I used this, and don’t let the word “large” fool you!), we filled it with soil. Then we set our tomb carved in the rock in the corner of the garden (I found that aquarium accessories could offer some neat options, like this cichlid stone), before filling the rest of the garden with plants. We used some little succulents we got at a local store along with some pretty decorative moss, and then Gabriel used small smooth stones to make a little pathway through the garden to the tomb. Last of all, the boys went on a stone hunt outside to find something that would serve as a tomb cover.

John 19:41
Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.

Luke 23:55-56
The women who had come with Him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how His body was laid.Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments. On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.

On Good Friday, we used last week’s palm branches and our homemade crown of thorns to decorate our dinner table, when we ate lamb and roasted vegetables and matzo ball soup, along with the Seder plate with all its elements and plenty of wine.

Our kitchen island was cleared of all other decorations, and that is where we laid our own little Gethsemane. On Friday evening we closed up the tomb. On Saturday morning we found a little soldier to keep guard outside the tomb. And the children looked forward to seeing what would come of it on Sunday morning.

Matthew 27:59-60, 66
And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away. … So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard.

Come Sunday morning, the children came downstairs to find the guard fallen down, the stone moved away, and a piece of linen folded inside the tomb.

Matthew 28:2-8
And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men.But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.He is not here, for He has risen, as He said. Come, see the place where He lay.Then go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead, and behold, He is going before you to Galilee; there you will see Him. See, I have told you.”So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell His disciples.

Luke 24:1-12
…On the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb,but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel.And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?He is not here, but has risen. Remember how He told you, while He was still in Galilee,that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.”And they remembered His words,and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles,but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home marveling at what had happened.

They found a table set for a beautiful little breakfast. Fruit salad, hard boiled eggs with sea salt, mimosas, Easter story cookies, and Easter tomb rolls (the kids had helped me make those all on Saturday, which was really wonderful). Candles and music and the excited rush of gathering and eating and praising God together, singing Christ The Lord Is Risen Today. Gifts for each one at their place ~ books and chocolates.

Once the morning feasting was done, it came time to don our Easter clothing (clothing is hugely metaphorical and meaningful in Scripture and the history of the Church) ~ even the Easter sermon mentioned this, because we had three baptisms during the service and these Scriptures were emphasized.

Ephesians 4:17-24
Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!—assuming that you have heard about Him and were taught in Him, as the truth is in Jesus,to put off your old self,which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Colossians 3:12-17
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

Galatians 3:27
For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

And so we got dressed in new matchy-matchy clothes (and my heart ached in all the heaviest and bestest of ways, because I have been given a family to clothe, and children who can wear sickeningly matchy outfits!), and talked about putting on Christ, putting off our old selves, putting on the new self in newness of life and the beauty of holiness, putting on love above all other things.

And then? Then the party really started. Gabriel pointed out, “there sure is a lot of joy around church and everywhere today!” and I couldn’t help but laugh. Because isn’t that just exactly, precisely the way it should be?! May the joy of the gospel, and of the Resurrected Christ, and of the hope He has given His people, shed forth from your homes, your families, your churches, and your wanderings until He comes again and everything is made new and all is set right.

To the glory of the Father, amen. Allelulia!